Archive | Releases

Open Web Analytics 1.2.2 has been released. See the release notes for full details.

This release fixes a number of bugs found in 1.2.1 so we strongly recommend that you upgrade. In addition, this release introduces new and improved event queuing features that allow OWA to scale in high traffic volume environments by queueing events for asynchronous processing at a later time.

Specific features include:

Flat File Based Event Queueing – this mode allows OWA to avoid writing to the database during a tracking session. Instead tracking events are written to a flat file where they can then be processed at a later time.

Remote Event Queueing – this mode allows OWA to post it’s tracking events to another instance of OWA running under a separate php process or even on a remote server. This allows for multi-process and multi-server configurations where OWA’s event tracking is performed by one set of resources/servers and processing/logging is done by another.

Cache Expiration – Objects in OWA’s cache will now expire after a period of time in anticipation of a few upcoming features that will make it easier to update slowly changing dimensions.

More Event Processing Filters & Hooks – it is now possible to filter entire tracking events before they are logged to the database. This allows module developers to modify OWA’s core tracking logic without needing to modify any of OWA’s core files.

Overall, version 1.2.1 includes significant speed and memory usage improvements, tons of bug fixes, and some major new features including:

Domstream Recordings. OWA can now record a visitor’s mouse movements, keystrokes, and clicks as part of a “screen recording”. Think of it as a video camera that allows you to see exactly how visitors interact with your pages. Domstream Recordings are a great way to analyze the usability of your pages. It’s like having a usability lab embedded on every page.

Client-side Heatmaps. Part of a new overlay reporting framework, OWA now uses the wonders of HTML 5’s Canvas to paint heatmaps over your web pages. As part of this, the heatmap height and number of observation limits have been removed! Client-side heatmaps have been successfully tested with over 50,000 observations.

URL Parameter Filters. You can now tell OWA to strip off session based parameters from your URLs. This will help you ensure that OWA only tracks your canonical URLs.

Revamped Javascript Tracker. The Javascript tracker API has been re-factored to be much faster and easier to integrate with other Javascript. Support for tracking custom DOM events has also been added.

Filters. It is now possible for developers to filter tracking data before events are written to the database. See the wiki for more on what filter hooks are available in this release.

This version also brings significant changes to OWA’s configuration, PHP APIs, as well as directory structure so please consult the release notes for upgrade instructions.

What’s a better way to celebrate the new year than a sitting down with a new version of OWA. This is the first release candidate for version 1.2.1. See the release notes for OWA 1.2.1 here.

1.2.1 includes significant speed and memory usage improvements as well as tons of bug fixes and even some major new features including:

Domstream Recordings. OWA can now record a visitor’s mouse movements, keystrokes, and clicks as part of a “screen recording” that allows you to play back the interaction just as you would a video. Domstream Recordings are a great way to analyze the usability of your pages.

Client-side Heatmaps. Part of a new overlay reporting framework, OWA now uses the wonders of HTML 5’s Canvas to paint heatmaps over your web pages. As part of this, the heatmap height and number of observation limits have been removed! Client-side heatmaps have been successfully tested with over 50,000 observations.

URL Parameter Filters. You can now tell OWA to strip off session based parameters from your URLs. This will help you ensure that OWA only tracks your canonical URLs.

Revamped Javascript Tracker. The Javascript tracker API has been re-factored to be much faster and easier to integrate with other Javascript. Support for tracking custom DOM events has also been added.

This version also brings significant changes to OWA’s configuration, PHP APIs, as well as directory structure so please consult the release notes for upgrade instructions.

This release completes a significant amount of re-factoring to the core framework code including how entities, metrics, controllers, and views work.

New Features include:

Entity Schema Creation. OWA entities can now create their own database tables. OWA’s object-relational-mapping layer has been extended to allow entities to create, drop, and alter their own database tables. This eliminates the need for a separate schema installation facility/files. This has been done in a way where it is now possible to write data access layers for support of databases other than MySQL.

Plug-able Controller Authentication. OWA has always had plug-able authentication but prior to this release it was plugable on a global basis. Now you can define which authentication method to use on a controller by controller basis.

Widgets. OWA now features a number of widgets that can be placed on web pages. Developers can also now create their own widgets that can be used across views and modules.

Roles & Responsibilities. OWA now has a new user authentication scheme that helps controllers check to see if the current user’s role has the necessary capabilities in order to execute the controller’s action. OWA now defines a core set of user roles and capabilities that developers can apply to their controllers. See the wiki here for more details.

Log Named Users. OWA will now log request from named users (including those of the host application framework) by default. You can disable this via the Settings UI. This replaces prior functionality where OWA did not log admin users by default.

New Reports and Internal UI Design. All reports and admin screens have been resigned and re-factored. Further design improvements will be rolling out with the final 1.2 release. Also, all of OWA’s javascript functions and classes now operate under the OWA or owa_ namespaces in order to avoid conflicting with the host application’s javascripts.

View Specific Javascript and CSS. View classes can now load their own javascript and CSS files.

Metric Pagination. Much requested trend metrics can now page their results.

Open Flash Charts. JPGraphs has been replaced with Open Flash Charts as the default charting package for all graphs.

Sparklines. Javascript sparklines graphs can now be created for an trend-able metric.

Updated Packages. Updates to Browscap, PHPmailer, PEAR Log

Generic email View. OWA now provided a generic email view that controllers can use to send email messages

Service Layer. OWA now has a shinny new service layer that implements a number of global framework objects and services. Some objects such as the configuration and requestContainer objects have moved here and are now accessible via coreAPI methods. Modules and services implemented via framework plugins will reside in this layer shortly.

Form/Input Data Validations. Controllers can now validate request params and form input by calling a global validation service. Validation checks that are now built into OWA include: entityExists, required, stringMatch, entityDoesNotExist, subStringPosition, and stringLength. Developers can add additional validations as plugins.

Many, many other bug fixes that were lost in the migration to the new Trac.

Database Schema Update

1.2.0 includes an update the OWA’s core database schema – switching the table type from MySQL’s MyISAM to InnoDb in order to support features in upcoming releases . OWA will prompt you to apply the updates upon login to OWA’s admin interface. Please be sure to backup your database prior to appling any updates just incase you have to roll back.

If you are upgrading from a 1.2RC you have already had this update happen as there are no further schema updates from RC3.

Update Instructions

To update just “SVN up” from trunk or “SVN switch” to the tag for this release. Alternatively grab the tarball and overwrite all existing files except for your /path/to/owa/conf/owa-config.php and your /path/to/owa/owa-data/ directories. Once the new files are in place be sure to navigate to OWA’s admin interface in order to apply the database update (a good habit from now on).

And Finally…

Once again thanks for all the help and support related to getting 1.2 out the door. Next up is v1.3

1.2.0rc3 has been released. This is mainly a bug fix release and brings OWA up to date to work with version 2.8 of WordPress. Please give it a whirl. This will hopefully be the last release candidate before the 1.2.0 release.

To upgrade to this release just ‘svn up’ or download the tarball and copy the new files over the old ones.

This release completes a significant amount of re-factoring to the core framework code including how entities, metrics, controllers, and views work. We have tried to maintain backwards compatibility with most API methods but it’s worth doing some testing on your metrics and controllers to ensure things are working. One area that proved difficult to maintain backwards compatibility for was controller authentication and OWA’s original permission scheme. Please see the below for more info on that.

Ok, now onto the good stuff.

New Features include:

Entity Schema Creation. OWA entities can now create their own database tables. OWA’s object-relational-mapping layer has been extended to allow entities’s to create, drop, and alter their own database tables. This eliminates the need for a separate schema installation facility/file. This has been done in a way where it is now possible to write data access layers for support of databases other than MySQL.

Plug-able Controller Authentication. OWA has always had plug-able authentication but prior to this release it was plugable on a global basis. Now you can define which authentication method to use on a controller by controller basis.

Widgets. OWA now features a number of widgets that can be placed on web pages. Developers can also now create their own widgets that can be used across views and modules.

Roles & Responsibilities. OWA now has a new user authentication scheme that helps controllers check to see if the current user’s role has the necessary capabilities in order to execute the controller’s action. OWA now defines a core set of user roles and capabilities that developers can apply to their controllers. See the wiki here for more details.

Log Named users. OWA will now log request from named users (including those of the host application framework) by default. You can disable this via the Settings UI. This replaces prior functionality where OWA did not log admin users by default.

New Reports and Internal UI Design. All reports and admin screens have been resigned and re-factored. Further design improvements will be rolling out with the final 1.2 release. Also, all of OWA’s javascript functions and classes now operate under the OWA or owa_ namespaces in order to avoid conflicting with the host application’s javascripts.

View Specific Javascript and CSS. View classes can now load their own javascript and CSS files.

Metric Pagination. Much requested trend metrics can now page their results.

Open Flash Charts. JPGraphs has been replaced with Open Flash Charts as the default charting package for all graphs.

Sparklines. Javascript sparklines graphs can now be created for an trend-able metric.

Updated Packages. Updates to Browscap, PHPmailer, PEAR Log

Generic email view. OWA now provided a generic email view that controllers can use to send email messages

Service Layer. OWA now has a shinny new service layer that implements a number of global framework objects and services. Some objects such as the configuration and requestContainer objects have moved here and are now accessible via coreAPI methods. Modules and services implemented via framework plugins will reside in this layer shortly.

Form/Input Data Validations. Controllers can now validate request params and form input by calling a global validation service. Validation checks that are now built into OWA include: entityExists, required, stringMatch, entityDoesNotExist, subStringPosition, and stringLength. Developers can add additional validations as plugins.

Many, many other bug fixes that were lost in the migration to the new Trac.

Database Schema Update

This release includes an update the OWA’s core database schema – switching the table type from MySQL’s MyISAM to InnoDb in order to support features in upcoming releases . OWA will prompt you to apply the updates upon login to OWA’s admin interface. Please be sure to backup your database prior to appling any updates just incase you have to roll back.

Update Instructions

To update just “SVN up” from trunk or “SVN switch” to the tag for this release. Alternatively grab the tarball and overwrite all existing files except for your conf/owa-config.php and your owa-data/ directories. Once the new files are in place be sure to navigate to OWA’s admin interface in order to apply the database update (a good habit from now on).

And Finally…

Because this is a release candidate, not everything may work quite right so please report bugs and oddities that you find by filing tickets at OWA’s Trac under the 1.2.0 milestone.

Fix for RSS feed tracking when using URL re-writing under WordPress Installs

Fix for broken PHP alternative error logging function

Fix for broken install and dashboard under Gallery2

Added re-factored template system that looks for template overrides in a directory called “local” within the module’s template directory (e.g. /path/to/owa/modules/base/templates/local/mytemplate.tpl).

Added new template function to include sub-templates while respecting local overrides

Begun re-factoring templates to use new include method so that local overrides can be made

Added option to enable and disable feed link tracking. This will only disable tracking feeds as a discrete incoming traffic source.

Just copy the new files over the old or SVN switch to the 1.1.0rc4 tag.

Quick release fixes a few critical bugs including one that was breaking wordpress feeds.Highly recommend that you update from RC2 if running OWA as a wordpress plugin. Just copy the new files over the old.Keep those bug reports coming.